Author: Jim

Categories
Metaphysics

Clones and You (no, the other You)

We have, over the past few weeks of (very) personal identity discussions, really come together as a family, I think. We know each others tics and tacs, smarts and spasms, love of chili con carne and even what that gross stuff is. But do I really know that it is the you that you are? Or are you some other you, a devious you made to make me think that you are you when in fact you are not you at all. And maybe even you are wrong to think that you are you, so well made have you been. If you are not you, the you that you think you are, then who are you? Surely you are not no one (well, maybe not surely, my medication is still being ‘balanced’, so you could easily be no one; but let’s try to remain optimistic, even if only medicatedly so), for everyone is someone (source: Seuss). Can you be wrong about who you are? Wrong according to who or what? This is why clones suck.

Before we go into more detail about any of the above, let’s get straight on what we mean (well, what I mean; c’mon, its not like you are writing this) when we talk about clones. The scientific ‘clone’ is only interesting in the scientific sense: it is genetic copy of another organism. Creatures with the same DNA need not act in the same ways though, and so only the most ardent materialist would claim that one’s identity is entirely due to one’s DNA. Such an ardent claim would be foolishly idiotic at best since such a concept of personal identity is not one that is of much use to almost all of us. Anyone out there know what your genetic code is? Mine starts with a ‘c’ – I often, to save time, just refer to my genetic code as “the c-word”. (For example, a lot of my inherent drive to be successful is due to the c-word.) Does anyone here ever wake up, wonder who you are, sequence your DNA, and then think,”oh, yeah – that’s me”? Right.

In personal identity, at least in this take on it, ‘clone’ is going to mean a ‘movie clone’, where the clone does not just have the same DNA, but also has the same scars, beliefs, desires, tattoos, etc., that the original has. While such a creature only exists in science fiction (what the hoi poloi call ‘sci-fi’), there is sound philosophical reasoning that such a creature could be, especially if you a materialist. Recall, if you will and can, our most previous discussion where you put the locus of identity into or about the brain. Since you go where the brain goes, it stands to reason that an exact duplicate of the brain would work just as the original does and so be you as well, right? All those neurons and chemicals and whatnot are the things of you, if you go where they are. A movie clone is just an exact copy of that brain (together with the rest of the body because, hey, we care about the customer), so why would it not think and behave just as the original brain does, so long as it has the same set of neurons in the same configuration firing in the same patterns at the same stimuli?

It is the possibility of movie clones that make me think that the ‘cloning will lead to slavery’ debate is ridiculous. I do not want to get into ethics here, but much of the hullabaloo about cloning has to do with playing God or mistreating a living thing, but think about this: suppose you have a lot of work to do. Maybe you are a full-time student who also has a job and a kid to take care of (now do you see why condoms are important?), you are just the sort of person who needs a clone to take up some of the slack. So, you go to the cloning place (You2), have a clone made and bring it home.

“Right,” you say, “I am going to take a nap. “You,” you point at your clone, “can work on the research paper and make dinner.”

“Haha!” your clone says. “I am going to take a nap while you do that.”

See, your clone thinks and desires just as you do, and if you cannot convince your own lazy ass to get things done, how successful will you be at convincing an ass identical in every way to your own? So, slavery, as far as movie clones go, is unlikely at best and openly chaotic and murderous at worse. Mostly, clones will just confuse us. But, back to the topic at hand: is the movie clone you?

Yes, it is. If memories are what makes you who you are, then the clone is you as it has all the memories you do. It even remembers going to You2 and being cloned (and so it think thinks it is the original and you are the clone). Whatever memories you do not have any longer, it does not have either. It reacts in the same way in the same situations that you do.

If the body and brain are what makes you who you are, then the clone is you as it has the same body and brain. At least, there is no way for anyone at any level to tell the difference between the two of you: same DNA, same cellular structure, same neural configuration, and so on. Of course, what some of that means is pretty much what it does for the memory solution as our memories are stored or encoded in our neurons.

Hurray! We have a found a fire that both of our camps can gather about to tell ghost stories (even the materialist/body/brain camp cannot even begin to believe in something like non-material ghosts).

So, wow. Huh. (Movie) clones are you. Cool. This did not take too long at all. What’s that? Some of you disagree. But why? How could you? After all we’ve been through!? I don’t even know who you are anymore! (Yes, yes – I’ve been waiting weeks to work that one in.) Why might a clone of you, a movie clone even, not be you?

There are a couple of reasons, and I am just going to list them in as unbiased a fashion as I can manage (you inbred jackass!).

Both revolve around our (very basic) intuitions about what makes us who we are, and what we think that means. Think of the following example (and, dammit, remember this example as we are coming back to this in a few weeks when we talk about determinism and free will). We are going to make a movie clone of you, but the process requires that you be asleep. Both you and the clone wake up in identical rooms (same colors, furniture, feng shui, etc.). On the table next to your bed(s) are two glasses: one of apple juice and one of water. Whichever glass one of you reaches for is the same glass the other will reach for. Both will hold the glass in the same (though respective) hand, both will drink the same amount, both will place the glass back on the table in the same (though respective) place. What might seem like magic is, in fact, just the result of our above discussion about the brain and how it works. You like the food or drink you do because of your brain, so two brains that are exactly alike will like the same things exactly.

However, should one of you have a clock in the room, but the other be clockless, all bets are off. The neurons of the clocked individual will forever differ from those of the clockless (this is sometimes called the clock gap (no, actually; it isn’t)). Two questions spring forth from this example, both challenge the idea that the movie clone is the same person as you. (A) Did you, when both bodies drank, have two drinks or only one? If the clone is you, that implies that you live in two separate bodies simultaneously (shades of Parfitt!) and so you had two drinks at the same time. If the clone is not you, you only had one drink. But this leads to the second question: (B) Once the neurons change in the clocked you, which is the clone and which is you? Are those changes enough to make for a different person? Maybe not, but eventually, as both body’s experiences differ, there will come a division, but if there was initially no way to tell the difference between you and the clone, who is to say that you are the original and the other the clone now? Any decision seems mostly arbitrary and whatever identity comes down to, hopefully it is not arbitrary.

Now for the second big intuitive reason against the clone being you. Suppose that after the cloning procedure, we hold you (the original) up with paperwork but let the clone go home to your sweetie, and the two of them proceed to make ever-so-sweet woo. Has your sweetie cheated on you? Well, sweetie might not think so, but what do you think? Did you experience sweetie’s deliciously hot breath caress your neck, torso and nethers? Did you feel sweetie’s sweaty weight pulse and throb beneath and then above you? Was that you afterwards whose voice was hoarse due to multiple exclamations about heaven and all that is wonderful about it being there in the bed with you and sweetie? Or were you filling out paperwork back at You2?

This is really a question of anticipation. The relationship of anticipation is one that is special in the sense that you can only truly have it with a future you. You can look forward to a friend of yours winning a lot of money, but you do not look forward to that in the same way that you do about yourself winning a lot of money. Suppose I offer you a million dollars to be cloned, but the original body is destroyed and the clone is what gets the money. Do you think that is you who is getting the money? For many of you, that answer is ‘no’. For those of you who think the answer is ‘yes’, what happens if there is a mistake in the machine and the original is destroyed but the clone body is not made for one week: where are you during that week?

In conclusion: clones are and are not you. Maybe simultaneously. Also, sexy lightsabers.

Categories
Metaphysics

Personal Identity and Brain Swapping

When last we left this perplexing topic, many of you were trying to get me arrested for a crime another I committed. (I say “many of you” even though only my mom and my lawyer were trying to do that, but my circle of friends has scant points about it, so ‘many’ it was.) When we are looking at memories as the signpost of identity-pointing, there are detours aplenty. Today, we are going to move on to the third of the potential candidates for identity fixing: the physical body.

Are You Your Body?

The pros and cons of the body as a candidate for personal identity here are pretty intuitive, and much of them we have seen earlier (with memories), if in slightly different form. The body is easily recognizable, and, in fact, is how we identify others. Slight changes, such as haircuts or tanning, seem to do little to distort or erase the recognizable features. However, which features matter the most? How many of them are necessary to maintain if one’s identity is to remain constant? Suppose you gain or lose three hundred pounds, you may well feel and be unrecognizable to both yourself and others. Are you a different person?Many soldiers are returning from Iraq and Afghanistan with missing limbs; are they different people? Both examples will result in the individual’s feeling different, but is that enough for identity to change as well? Think of the liquor store example from my previous post. How would that apply here?

Suppose that I rob the liquor store, but instead of getting hit by a car I instead cut off one of my arms.

Losing an arm

Is the the one-armed man the guilty person (I know Harrison Ford’s answer)?

What if I gain a lot of weight during the six weeks the police look for the robbing murderer?

Getting Fat

I doubt there is much controversy to either of these scenarios, and almost every one of you is going to think that identity has remained constant, that the same person is still there or here or whatever, even if that same person is not exactly the same (what’s the difference?, you might wonder, and good for you, you wondering person; the topic of identity when not dealing with people is going to be dealt with soon).

Remember when we talked about the Ship of Theseus, and I suggested that there are some who suggest that every possible change results in new identity. Such an individual, if she is consistent, would have to say that I am not the person who robbed the liquor store because I cut my fingernails or because I removed some hair. Such a person, though, is not really a person in the traditional sense of the word ‘person’, but is more of a collection of experiences that are joined together. Such a person cannot recall her first date, as all her recollections belong to someone else, just as such a person cannot look forward to a happier time in her life, as it will not be she that is enjoying that time, only someone who looks and thinks much as she does.

Few of you think like that, though. But why? If you are not in the memory camp and the physical features have changed beyond recognition, why is a person still the same even after extensive physical changes? What’s that? Sorry, the sound on my computer is muted — what are you saying at your screen as though Skype were on and our conversation was being passively monitored by virtuous government agencies? Ah, I see. Thoughts! The thoughts have not changed. Good! It’s almost as though you knew where I wanted this post to go. Thanks!

Thoughts and Brains

Of course, by ‘thoughts’ what your philosophically ignorant train of thinking was suggesting was the brain. What most members of the physical camp believe to be the defining feature of identity anchoring is the brain. So long as you have the same brain, you are the same person.

Another way to get to the brain is by elimination. Which parts of the body matter? For the body, that is pretty simple: beards, arms, legs, livers, ears, moles, etc., are all pretty superfluous. The part that matters is the brain. How much of the body matters? Really, again, almost all of the body is superfluous except the brain. What if the brain is damaged and the thoughts no more work good? Well, that is not the same brain then, is it? As far as which parts matter and how much of those parts matter, what am I, a brain scientist? (Yes. Yes, I am. Not in the United States, of course; regulations and all that have proven quite the obstacle to my life goals).

The solution to those worries is normally dealt with by a kind of common sense functionalism. Most of us don’t know Broca’s area from the pubic bone, but if you cannot remember anything from last night back, your brain… it don’t work too good. So the parts and amounts that matter for personal identity are the ones, whichever they are (and brain scientists know which those are), that affect the functioning of the brain.

Simple enough then. You are your functioning brain, and wherever it goes, so go you. Right? Right. Right? Well, dammit.

Swapping Brains

Let’s swap brains, then, you and I, and see where we go. Who wakes up in a svelte killing machine of evolutionary perfection and who wakes up in body aimed at child predation? No, no. There are no trick questions on this site. You will wake up, most of you think, in a body not originally yours. If the swap is permanent, maybe your personality will change based on how people around you treat you (either with sexual fearsomeness or with fear of your sexual perversity), but you are still basically the same person. You are your brain.

Note that this is different from those mind swap movies that are made every other week or so. In those instances, it is, or seems to be, the memories that are swapped and not the brains. A brain-based identity theorist watches those movies and laughs (partly at their sheer delightful hilarity) because the only change is that the individuals involved wrongly believe themselves to be someone else. How could they be, though, since their brains are still where they have always been?

There is really no way to confound anyone’s intuitions about the brain as it relates to identity, is there? Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha! Sorry, sorry — whoo, man. You really had there for a minute. Alright, let’s get to the confounding.

Suppose a man, let’s call him Gary, was born with half a brain. This happens, you know. Gary can still function and get about, but he only has half a brain. Maybe he cannot recall as much stuff as you can, maybe his motor skills are shaky in places, but he is a person and his name is Gary. Everyone okay with this?

Now let’s suppose that another person, Harry, has a regular, whole brain. But, egads! Harry is hit by a crazed Canadian driver and the resulting life-saving operation leaves him with half a brain. Now, this is not how it would work, but let’s suppose he still has around half his memories and the like. Is anyone here, aside from the identity-extremists, going to suggest that Harry is no longer Harry? Harry is still Harry even if only half of his brain is there since Harry can still function, to some degree, to some recognizable degree, as Harry used to.

Alright, and if we were to swap Harry’s half brain and Gary’s half brain, I suspect that you are going to think they, the people, go whither their brains do. Fine, fine. And if there was a third person, Terry, who lost his brain altogether, where is Terry? Gone. Right.

Brain swaps

What about this, though (and this is due to philosopher Derek Parfit): let’s take Gary’s half and Harry’s half and put them together into Terry’s head. Who is that? It has half of each person’s brain (well, I guess, it has all of their available brain, so whatever) and, so, we are suggesting here, it has half of each person’s memories, is it both Gary and Harry? If not, why not?

If Harry with a brain in his head was still Harry and not dead, then Harry’s half with Gary’s half should make them both be (please try not to laugh) who they once were. Can the one body be two persons? What if both Harry and Gary had had whole brains that we split, combining one half from each in two separate bodies? Can two bodies then be four persons? Oh, philosophy, what have you done to our so carefully coddled beliefs about all that is personally identical in the world?

Next Time…

Next time: clones! And light sabers! And sex!!! But mostly, and only, just clones.

Categories
Metaphysics

Personal Identity and Lifetime Movies

My last post dealt with the Ship of Theseus. It was a kind of primer about personal identity. What you think about the ship, whether it was the same ship or not at the end of the journey, might reflect what you think about identity when it comes to individuals. If you thought the ship was different at the end of the journey, perhaps what matters to you are the physical parts of the body. If you thought that the ship was the same at the end of the journey, perhaps identity lies in something a bit more ephemeral. But what? Well, let’s see. And then let’s see why you’re wrong. (Alec is all about showing you what different people think; I am all about trying to get you to see what you think and why you are wrong for thinking so. That is why Alec gets more fan mail and I get more slashed tires.)

Personal identity has to do with what makes you who you are over time. There are three big common-sense solutions to the question of personal identity:

  1. The soul
  2. Memories/experiences
  3. The physical body

Let’s get rid of the soul right away. Whatever the hell you use to figure out who you are, it is a pretty safe bet that it is not the soul. That is not to say there is no such thing as a soul; maybe there is, and maybe there is not. You do not sense your soul in any sort of direct fashion, and so it is probably not what you use to determine your identity. Most of you who believe in a soul do so because of faith, not because of direct evidence. Is who you are based on faith as well? What if your soul left your body and another soul came in? Would you notice? How? I suspect that most of what believe the soul to be responsible for can be explained by the issues with the other two solutions, and since neither of them really work either, you shouldn’t sweat this one too much.

How about memories/experiences (that slash is going to be important in a later post, so don’t forget it)? If memories are what makes you who you are, what happens when you lose those memories? Suppose you get amnesia. Are you the same person you were before? Let’s just go right to a Lifetime Movie example to test intuitions (your intuitions, of course; mine are forged in the surly steel of philosophic uncertainty).

A woman is driving through, uh, let’s say northern Canada…

…and she loses control of her car, crashing into the Canadian forest.

In a dazed state, with a broken arm and minor head trauma, she wanders a bit until she comes upon a small town. She is quickly noticed and taken to the local medical clinic where they see to her wounds. Upon asking her who she is, where she is from, and if there is anyone they can call, the staff realize the woman has amnesia. Furthermore, she has no ID on her. Despite looking for many days, the townspeople have no luck finding out who she is or where she came from. Still, these are very nice, Canadian people, and so they ‘adopt’ her. She picks a new name, gets a job at the very hospital that helped patch her up, and then gets an apartment. She works there for a year or two, meets and then dates and then marries (awwwww…) a doctor. She is happy. This is Lifetime, though, so the good times only last about forty minutes or so into the tale.

She has been married, as the story goes, for five years, when one day she hears a knock on her door. Opening it, as she is now a trusting Canadian, she sees a man she does not recognize, and yet he seems to recognize her. “I’ve found you,” he says. “I’ve finally found you?”

“Who are you?” our plucky heroine asks.

“I’m your husband,” he says. And he has pictures to back this up: pictures of their wedding, her parents, her childhood, and so forth. She, of course, has no memory of him, her parents, or her childhood.

Now: philosophy!

Not to imply that marriage implies or entails (or anything else like those two) ownership, but this is just the easiest way to ask this question: Whose wife is she? The first guy or the second (current amnesiac state) guy? Keep in mind that we are not writing some sort of Lifetime Slash fiction here. She is probably not going to want to be with both. In fact, if asked, she expresses a clear preference for the second guy (since, you should recall, unless you are being ironic, she has no memory of the first guy).

I’ll have Alec set up some sort of poll for this question, but I am going to go ahead and forecast/predict that the majority of people are going to choose the second guy as the winner. But why, you might wonder, even those of you who agree but who have come to philosophy as a means to better elucidate your thoughts and opinions. Here is why: you believe that memories are what makes a person who she is. You are you because you remember doing the stuff you did. You do not remember all of it, but you think, and perhaps rightly, that you don’t need to. You do remember starting this article (it’s not that long yet, is it?); you remember eating dinner last night; you remember graduating from high school or junior high school or grade school (you preciously precocious bastard); and so on. What you do not remember doing, you common sensically believe you didn’t do. Maybe you are not always right (hey — that is a good topic for a later post! Thanks for that suggestion), but you still have that intuition. Our lovely Canadian is in the same memory leak of a boat. She recalls her current husband, but no other. Hence, she is only the woman she remembers being.

What happened, then, to the first husband’s wife? I suspect many of you are not comfortable with stating that she is dead, but then, where is she if she is not married to the second guy? Gone? Away? Buried deep in the mind of this new woman? Some of you are sure and some of you are not. Note that the answer here becomes murkier when we talk about her parents: did they lose their daughter as their son-in-law lost his wife? Physically no, but mentally yes? Are you comfortable with that? Would alcohol help?

Let’s change the example a bit, and then end this entry, giving you something to think on a bit or two. Suppose instead of a woman driving a car through the Canadian forest, it is me and I am at a liquor store. And instead of a car crash, I am buying a bottle of Maddog 20/20 (they all taste like gas, so let’s get the blue one because it is the prettiest). And instead of being found by benevolent Canadian townsfolk, I am shooting to death the liquor store operator, writing my name and social security number on the wall in his blood, leaving my driver’s license and hair and nail clippings in bag labeled “DNA” on the counter, and then walking outside yelling, “Hey, everyone! I just killed the liquor store operator of my own, sane volition!”

And then, instead of being given a job at a Canadian hospital, and falling in love with a lovely Canadian man, I am hit by a car (maybe driven by a Canadian), given severe head trauma, and awake in a hospital with permanent amnesia, having been arrested by the police who, given all the evidence I left behind, tracked me down in about five weeks.

With those slight and subtle changes in place, we can ask basically the same question we asked above: Is the person in the hospital bed the same as the the person who killed the liquor store operator? If you thought the woman was not the same as the one who had married the first guy in the first story, you should also think that the person in the bed is not the same guy as the one who killed the liquor store operator. And yet… And yet… You do. Why? Do you hate me? Are you sexist? Do you think that justice is more important than metaphysics (it isn’t)? Let’s end here and we will take this up and more in the next installment of: Do you know who I am? Who the hell are you?

Categories
Metaphysics

Identity and the Ship of Theseus

The Ship of Theseus is a great example of identity, though it does not work for everyone when it comes to personal identity, or the identity of people. Here is the basic idea. A guy named Theseus has a phenomenal ship that everyone wants, but he is not selling for any amount. However, one day, a merchant from a distant land offers Theseus an enormous sum to build an identical ship. The merchant wants the exact same sort of timbers from the same forest, the same nails from, uh, wherever the hell nails come from, the same sail material from the same cotton plants, and so on. If there is a plank of wood that has a knothole in it, the merchant wants an identical knothole in the same place on the duplicate ship. Sounds crazy, right? Well, most rich people are crazy. Theseus agrees and loads his ship with everything he needs to build a duplicate ship and then sets sail. He is only out of port for a couple of hours when one of the planks on his ship warps slightly and allows water into the ship. Theseus could return home and patch it, but he would just as soon get to the merchant, build the duplicate ship and then roll around on his big pile of money. With that in mind, he takes the corresponding piece, its identical counterpart, from the supplies and swaps the two planks out. (If you like, he makes a note of this switch, but his honesty does not matter for how the example works). As the journey continues, he needs to swap out more pieces: sail is torn, carpet is frayed, he needs a new wi-fi router, and so on. For ease of talking points, let’s make the following supposition: Once Theseus is 1/4 through his journey, he has 75% original parts and 25% new parts; at the 1/2 part, he has 50% original parts and 50% new parts; at the 3/4 mark, he has 25% original parts and 75% new parts; and finally, at the end of the journey, he has 0% original parts and 100% new parts.

Here’s the question: is the ship at the end of the voyage the same as the ship at the beginning of the journey? There are only two answers: yes, and no. A bunch of you are going to, somehow, try to wriggle more than that out of the situation, and your insane hearts are in the right place, but that will not make the insanity any less prevalent. Most of you are going to think the ship is not the same, so let’s talk about that first.

If the ship is different (and why wouldn’t be, you are collectively screaming), then when did it become different? At one point on the journey can we point at and say, “There! Did you see that? A different ship!” Here the answers are not so clear, but are not too difficult to lump together. Most people are in one of three categories: a) the very first change; b) right at or after the 50% mark; and c) the final change or replacement of parts. My question to all three groups is basically the same: why there? Why did you pick the percentage mark or the piece that you did?

The ship becomes a different ship at the very first change. This makes sense, I think, until you think about it and whether it makes sense. Suppose the very first change is a nail and not a piece of wood, does that matter? It shouldn’t. The percentage difference between a nail and a plank when the ship is taken as a whole is virtually negligible. What if a bird crapped on the ship? That is a change, but does it make for a different ship?

Of course, not. Bird crap is an extraneous feature of the ship, but is not integral to the identity of the ship itself “Integral”? Very impressive term! So if the ship loses a nail (one pops free), and that nail is not replaced, does that make for a different ship, Mr. Integral? Perhaps the nail was not an integral part, but then what is? If the sail is replaced, does that matter? What if only the hull is replaced? See, the problem is trying to figure out which parts are integral.

We often think of integral parts as though which cannot be taken away and the object still be whatever the hell it is. That can be due to reasons of either identity or function. If we take away the sail of the ship, it still floats and can haul freight (though it takes much longer), and I suspect none of us would have any issue with calling it the same ship. Is the same true if we took away only the hull? Not only would it look the same, but it is not going to float or hold any freight. So far, all of that is fairly intuitive. Let’s take away just the nails. The ship would probably fall apart very quickly, but until it does, is it the same ship? It looks that way and, at least for the moment, it functions in the same way.

Function As Identity
An issue with identity as function is this: Suppose we identify one another by function. First, how the hell do we ever figure out what our function is? If we are using it to fix identity, it cannot be something general like ‘reproduction’ or ‘making money’, because then how would we differentiate between individuals who are doing both or either? Let’s say that we resolve that issue, though, and fix your identity as ‘runner’ because that is what you do when you get any free time, or you are a competing runner or whatever. Dammit, just accept this as your function. Now, suppose you are hurt and can no longer use your legs, and so can no longer run. You can no longer perform the running function — what does that do to your identity? Is it gone? Is it changed?

More than half of the ship must change for the ship to be different: If one little change, even an little integral one, does not make for a different object, then what about a change of 51%? Again, the same questions can be asked: does it matter at all what that extra 1% change is?

Every single piece must change for the ship to be different: I won’t be petty and go rehash the above paragraph again (though I could, because it works). Let’s instead agree that the identity does not change until the last piece is swapped out. Does that make the last piece integral then? What if it is a nail instead of a plank? What if it is a stitch in the sail instead of a nail? Suppose we take that last piece out but do not replace it? 99% of the ship has been changed and the last one percent is just taken away, what does that mean for its identity? Yeah. I know.

Fine, then — the ship does not change. It is the same at the beginning as it is at the end. I can see, now, why you might think that. And everyone who originally thought it are now crowing to the moon about their daringly correct choice. Let’s suppose we now take all of the original parts and put them back together. It would be a fairly crappy ship, but why would that not be the original ship? Yeah. I know.

What you think about the Ship of Theseus might indicate what you think about identity for people. We will see as we continue on this topic in later (though soon upcoming) posts.

Categories
Epistemology

Materialism and Doubt

A student emailed me asking me about the role of doubt in a materialist/science dominated culture. It was an excellent question. What role would doubt play in someone who believed that science could find all the answers? We do doubt, but the materialist is often portrayed as a person with a particular sort of confidence in her worldview. The materialist not only believes that everything that exists or could exist is physical, or physically based, but that all such things can be given fully physical explanations as well. While not all materialists do believe such a strong claim, enough do to lend strength to the stereotype.

I suggested to the student that doubt is what drives materialism, and that it is doubt that the materialist uses to suggest it is superior to dualism. What follows is how I tried to portray this to my student.

Doubt

I think that most materialists would accept the description of them as ‘big bang until now’ kind of believers. There was the beginning, whatever that was (and whatever that was, it was entirely physical), and, given the laws of physics, everything has turned out as it has. That we are able to peer into the earliest times of the universe with our telescopes backs up this materialist perspective. It is, of course, possible that there are places or parts of the universe that are not bound by the laws of physics, but that seems less and less likely the more we learn about the universe.

What of doubt though, you ask? Is it evolutionarily beneficial? I have not read much on that issue specifically, but I have read quite a bit about it in a roundabout fashion. Here is what I think a materialist/scientist would suggest as the role and purpose, naturalistically speaking, of doubt. We are born not as blank slates, but as probability machines. What that means is that while we are not born with knowledge of how the world works, nor are we born with no rules or inclinations at all. Rather, we are born with a set of ingrained tools that allow us to figure out how the world seemingly works. Babies and children (and some adults), rarely take things at face value, despite appearances to the contrary. A child does not know how gravity works until it has seen many things fall (and many things, such as balloons and planes, not fall). The child is constantly touching and tasting and probing its way about and through the world to learn what the world is made of and how it works. But, one might say, that is curiosity, not doubt. I think that is right — at least, partially right.

Curiosity is the drive to learn, but the truly curious, which children are, do not merely accept what they encounter. They seek out not just new experiences, but the commonality that exists between and within those experiences. That means that, along with the curiosity, there is doubt present. There is doubt that what the child has just experienced is enough to understand, is correct, is the right sort of standard by which other experiences can be judged. We doubt, though not always (or even often) in the philosophical sense, because of its survival benefits. Should I trust that sound, just because it was trustworthy the first time I heard it? Should I believe that all red fruits are healthy and all blue breads are bad? Doubt drives curiosity drives doubt. If we did not doubt, the first suspected causal unions would have been good enough for us. A virgin in the volcano seems to have forestalled an eruption, therefore, the gods have been appeased. What need would we have of science if we had no doubt?

Curiosity is the desire to learn, but doubt is the tempering of what we have learned into knowledge. A creature that does not doubt will not survive long. And it is doubt that is built into science itself. The idea of falsifiability is based on doubt. If there is no way in which a theory could be shown to be false, it is not considered to be a good or strong theory. That is doubt.

While we are or can be 100% certain of how things seem to us on a sensory basis (I seem to be seeing green; I seem to be tasting an apple; I seem to be hearing crunching; etc.), often what we sense does not fit with what we have previously sensed or with what we currently believe. That is where the doubt comes in. Suppose I hear a voice telling me it is Volthoon and that I must kill my neighbors. I cannot doubt that it seems to me that I am hearing such a voice and that I am hearing it say such a thing, but I can doubt whether there is such a voice saying such things. Maybe I won’t question it (there are many who do not), or maybe I will not think to question it (there are many in this group as well), but I can certainly accept what I am sensing as something that I seem to be sensing without also accepting that it is a real and genuine thing that has not been concocted by my mind alone.

If I were to see a cat bark like a dog, it would confuse the hell out of me, not because I would doubt what I sensed, but because what I seemingly sensed did not fit in with any of my previous sensory experiences. Now I wonder which belief or set of beliefs I will have to drop or alter (and there comes doubt again). Now I wonder if I can trust my eyes or my ears (see the McGurk effect for a cool example of this), or neither or both. This doubt leads to the “why” question, I think, though you are entirely correct that it is a question that I may never be able to answer.

Final Thoughts

Doubt, unsurprisingly, is the philosopher’s bread and butter and beer and pillow. We all want to know what is going on, but we all want to be right. Those are desires that are at unfortunate odds with one another, but they are so because we doubt. I am not sure that the world is a better place because we doubt, but I am reasonably sure that we have survived as a species, and, less importantly, philosophy has thrived as a discipline, because we do.

Categories
Metaphysics

What is True Depends on What is the Truth

This is a follow-up to Alec’s nicely written post on realism and its varieties. I put forth in the comments section the idea that what one believes to be the case with regards to realism v. anti-realism is going to color what one takes to be true in the world. Or, at the very least, what one considers to be a candidate of truth in the world. Here is why that is (and note that this is not merely my opinion, but is an established line of argument and belief among metaphysicians).

Realism, as Alec eloquently stated, is the view that the world is a particular way in a mind-independent fashion. Anti-realism is the view that the world is mind-dependent, and so derives many, perhaps all, of its features because of how it is perceived. Those are very quick takes on the two views and should not be satisfactory in and of themselves to anyone. Again, I refer you to Alec’s post.

Depending on which of the views you hold, your idea of what is true (or at least what you believe to be true) need not change, but what makes something true (its truth conditions) does change. Why might this be? First, let’s talk about the common sense view of truth.

Suppose a person makes the following utterance, “snow is white.” That utterance has a truth value. It is true if snow is white, and it is false if snow is any color other than white. How do we go about determining if it is true? Well, we go and look at snow. “Look”, you might say, if you live somewhere other than NYC or Chicago, “there is some snow, and it is white.” Hurray! We have verified its truth status. Or, dum dum dum, have we?

If you are a realist, you think that there are properties in the world that we can discover. This does not just mean that we can encounter snow, but that when we encounter snow, we can learn something about it, such as it being cold, malleable, crunchy, and white. If those are characteristics that we cannot discover or encounter, there is no way we can determine the truth value of any statements that make reference to such characteristics. The utterance, “snow is white”, is true only if snow is actually white. We laugh at a child who says, “snow is brown” because we know that snow is not brown (even in NYC, snow is white until it hits the dirty, dirty ground there). This is called the correspondence theory of truth. An utterance is true if it corresponds with what is actually the case in reality. “My keys are in the bowl by the door” is only true if my keys are in the bowl that is by the door. If they are in a dish, if they are in the kitchen, if I have no keys at all, the utterance is false because it does not correspond with how things actually are in reality. Hopefully you can see why a realist is drawn to the correspondence theory (though the two are not necessarily conjoined).

But I suspect you can also see why the anti-realist is not going to favor a correspondence theory of truth. For the anti-realist, most of what we believe to be the case about the world is due to how our minds project or create certain features or characteristics of what we perceive. For the anti-realist, the utterance of “snow is white” is expressing an opinion since there is no objective characteristic of ‘white’ in the world; there is only the experience that I refer to as ‘being white’. Whiteness, then, is a mind-dependent characteristic. It exists only because our minds create it. What does that do to the truth value of the utterance then? Well, as there is no objective reality to compare the utterance to, we cannot rely on the correspondence theory. Even if there were an actual characteristic of being white in the world, how could we ever know what that characteristic was like when our perceptions are so unreliable? And yet, the anti-realist does not want to say that there is no such thing as truth. Instead, what determines truth is something different from correspondence. It is called the coherence theory of truth. For the anti-realist (for many of them, at least), our mind-dependent experiences build up a large collection of beliefs about what we think the world is like. Since we cannot say what the world is actually like, we judge truth based on how well an utterance coheres (fits in) with our collection of beliefs. We want our collection of beliefs to be as coherent as possible. Note that coherence here does not merely mean understandable or rational, it means something larger: that our collection of beliefs not contain contradictions. We do not want to believe that we are both standing in the rain and we are not standing in the rain. We do not want to believe that snow is white together with snow is not white. (Of course, we can believe variations of those, but the contradictions are smoothed away by adding unspoken caveats to the utterance. For example, “snow is white” need not contradict “snow is not white” if we have the unspoken belief that the second utterance is about NYC snow which is changed or altered snow. “I am standing the rain” need not contradict “I am not standing in the rain” so long as we have the unspoken belief that I am standing beneath an umbrella which means that I am in the rain without being rained upon.)

Truth and Language
This can quickly become an issue of semantics or philosophy of language and so worth another, different post. Briefly, though, we know what we mean when we say what we do. When I point at snow and say, “snow is brown”, I do not literally mean that I believe snow is brown. Instead, I mean that snow, in such and such a state or condition (whatever condition is present, perhaps), is brown. If someone, maybe Alec, who knows, were to ask me, “do you mean to say that you think snow is brown?” I can honestly and reasonably say, “That is not what I meant when I said, ‘snow is brown.’ I meant that the snow here is brown, by which I meant to say, this is some really dirty snow.’” There is the demonstratrive sense of the utterance, by which I point and so indicate a particular batch of snow. Think of the old example about eskimos having eighteen different words for snow. That is a ridiculous example, I think, meant to suggest that eskimos like snow so much they talk about it a lot. But guess what? We non-eskimos have lots of different words for snow too: snow, wet snow, dry snow, soft snow, heavy snow, light snow, sleet, hail, etc. Wait a minute, you might exclaim, those are just the word ‘snow’ with an adjective in front of it. Yep — many of our words are like that. In fact, many words are like that: compound concepts captured in one word. What does ‘slush’ mean, if not icy rain? What is ‘beautiful’ aside from ‘pretty’ preceded by some number of ‘very’s?

Back to the topics at hand though, for an utterance to be true for the anti-realist, then, just means that the utterance fits in with my already accepted beliefs. “Snow is white” is true if what I call ‘snow’ is associated with the characteristic that I call ‘white’, and it means nothing beyond that. So, which theory of truth is correct? The realist theory is not correct, as there is no way to verify if what we have said actually corresponds with what is actually the case in the world. There is the experience I have whenever I come across a sensation that I label ‘white’, but why think that particular experience matches up with the way the world truly is? Perhaps I am color blind. Perhaps I am hallucinating. But you are not, the realist might contend. But how do you know that I am not? Can you prove that you are sensing the world as it actually is? If you could, there would be no anti-realist camp.

The anti-realist theory is not true either though, at least not obviously so. Coherence is an important attribute for any system of beliefs. For any system of beliefs, we want there to be as few outright contradictions as possible. Yet, why think that coherence alone is enough to establish truth? Someone who is schizophrenic or just simply insane might have a very coherent view of their experiences, but it only seems coherent to them because they are crazy. The schizophrenic person believes he hears voices separate from his own; he may even believe he sees people talking to him. We consider him sick though, because he is experiencing what no one else is or can. We say that the schizophrenic is wrong, not because his beliefs are not coherent, since many of them are (perhaps even as many of his beliefs cohere as do our own), but because he has beliefs that do not correspond to reality, to what we think is actually true. A claim, by the way, the schizophrenic will agree with once he is on successful medication.

What is the upshot of all this? Well, the realist maintains that our intuitive conception of truth is based on correspondence, not coherence, and the anti-realist maintains that we can never know whether our beliefs correspond with anything external to the mind, but that we can determine if our beliefs cohere with one another. Which you favor seemingly depends on what you think is real (though, to be fair, some suggest that what you think is real depends on what you think makes something true). However, it more often depends on what you think you justify as being true. That, however, has to do with straight up epistemology, and so must wait for another post.